Babbs Switch Fire

The fire broke out during a Christmas Eve party when a lighted candle decorating a Christmas tree came in contact with the cotton trim on a Santa Claus suit. The flames spread quickly over the entire room. Contributing to the deaths were screened over windows and a door that opened inward.

The nationwide publicity over the fire led to stricter fire safety codes for schools and other public buildings.

Fiction

• Beard, Darleen Bailey. The Babbs Switch Story. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0374304750
• Grossnickle, Mary Edens. Mary, Child of Tragedy: The Story of the Lost Child of the 1924 Babbs Switch Fire. Schoonmaker Publishers, 1980 (first published as a true story but later discredited).

External links

• Babbs Switch Fire on an Oklahoma Prairie Tales site
• Site of Babbs Switch Tragic School Fire. BlogOklahoma.us: Exploring Oklahoma's History. .